This disclosure relates generally to storage system maintenance. More particularly, it relates to storage system maintenance using a graphical user interface.
In computing, a device driver is a computer program that operates or controls a particular type of device that is attached to a computer. A device driver provides one or more software interfaces to hardware devices. The driver enables operating systems, and other computer programs, to access hardware functions of the computer and its peripherals without needing to know precise details of the hardware being used. For example, a storage device driver is used to access the data stored on a computer storage device.
In mainframe operating systems, an analogous mechanism for storage devices is called an access method. An access method is a function of a mainframe operating system that enables access to data on disk, tape or other external devices. Access methods were introduced in 1963 in the IBM OS/360 operating system and provide application programming interfaces (APIs) for transferring data to or from a device. The Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM) is a DASD access method used to process data in IBM mainframe operating systems. In the early 1970s, the Virtual Storage Access Method (VSAM) was introduced by IBM and was first used in the OS/VS1, OS/VS2 Release 1 (SVS) and Release 2 (MVS) operating systems. Later, it was used throughout the Multiple Virtual Storage (MVS) architecture and now it is used in the z/OS operating system. (IBM, MVS, z/OS are trademarks of the International Business Machines Corporation.) VSAM is a collection of four data set structures: Sequential, indexed, numbered and linear. These structures are combined with other access method software and utilities used on mainframe IBM operating systems.
As one can imagine, the data structures stored in mainframe computers can grow quite complex. Currently, there are limited means for the user to understand and maintain these structures.